


take me the way i am

by buttons



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Kinda Weird, M/M, Nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:17:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttons/pseuds/buttons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>How do you feel about me having feelings for you? <a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/e1763127d10514c331eaf79f4a49407a/tumblr_mhqcr5f0t61rzbprro1_500.jpg">[x]</a></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me the way i am

**Author's Note:**

> just posting a few things from my livejournal so don't mind me.... excuse the fact that i havent come up with a summary for this!
> 
> title from Ingrid Michaelson's song 'The Way I Am' _(which doesn't really relate to the story i just needed a title)_

There is a handsome man sitting next to you and the smile on his face is saying he loves you.

He is seventeen and naïve, still a child in many ways. He laughs like there is nothing out there that can hurt him, like it doesn't matter about all the bad in the universe, so long as there is good to go with it. And you don't think it's his age, it just seems to be a part of him; like his bony elbows and the way he laughs, sometimes holding what he's found funny inside because he doesn't have the words yet to describe why it's making him grin, the rest of the time sharing it with anyone around, as though he's passing the humor round, letting everyone in on it. A character flaw that only adds to his personality. A trait of his very own that you hope will not fade amongst cynicism that could come so easily. You do not want him to stop being him.

He is the man who's only just stopped being a boy, the boy on your sofa in your shared apartment, fiddling with the strings on his hoodie, swinging his feet, sometimes catching you and apologizing with a quick smile, you always staying  _It's fine_ and always meaning it, his hands tracing everywhere as he tells you about some concert he went to the other night – and he always tells you about his outings and most concert experiences sound the same, but you read the language of his hands like it's trying to tell you something more.

His name is Niall, and you love the way he introduces himself, in that proud way where he includes his last name as well as the first, straightening himself up as he says it. You met through Nick and Harry, or  _‘The Boyfriends’_  as you’d dubbed them, and after your first conversation you were still wondering how a fourteen year old knew so many profanities. People treat him like a child sometimes, even go so far as to treat him as though he’s stupid, most likely because of the way he seemed to radiate innocence, but when the flecks of light in his eyes dim you tell him  _Just ignore them, Ni,_   _people are just idiots sometimes. You’re more mature than all of them._ You want to say more;  _Don't listen to them, because that means they've won, and don't you doubt yourself, because I trust you, trust you with my life, with my soul, with my heart,_ and the words are slick and oily and burning honest in your head but you never say them.

He smiles at the words you do say though, so it's worth the pain in keeping what you don't say hidden away.

You've been roommates for over a year now, and friends for two years longer. You know a lot about him, you’ve always been observant when it comes to Niall. You know that he’ll always use the same shampoo and conditioner because they’re  _“the only good ones”_ , and that he always smells like vanilla and mint and sometimes you can’t even think straight when you’re around him and that there is a certain way he glances at you sometimes that makes your heart beat funny.

You don't tell him that.

He finds glory in the little things on the spectrum of importance. More heavy pressing matters surround you in your thoughts, and he takes the time and focuses out of the limelight, to the things that he only he appreciates –  _look Zayn, look at that, isn't it amazing?_ , he says, and you always follow his gaze, travel to the fantastical places hidden behind reality readily when with a guiding finger he marks out the way the clouds have bunched to create shapes, a kingdom, a fairytale, and you nod and admit to yourself you would never have paid a second thought to small wonders as he does, and would have been poorer because of it.

Sometimes before all this, you stopped, thought the world was no longer mysterious, believed with a youthful presumption that you had seen everything there was to see. But he is a mystery, and you find yourself wanting to see more, wanting to know more.

He believes the universe is painted in starlight, invading, shining through into the black places he knows exist but doesn't want to think about. He playfully believes in conspiracy theories that he used to elaborate and spin into tales that he told you in the dark when you both couldn't sleep, believes in the superiority of Mother Russian above all else with a tongue in cheek smile that shows he's not really serious –  _Zayn, don't you know that the periodic table was invented in Russia? –_ and the funny thing about that one was that he was being serious.

And most of all, above all things, above material wealth and position and status, above the forces of gods and natural and moral evil, above everything he believes in true love. The once in a lifetime kind. Chartered through with no navigation, sailing through a natural blindness on instinct alone.

He told you this one night in a drunken slur after the results of your final school exams, when you went out and celebrated with him and a couple of other people, including 'The Boyfriends', Harry’s friend Louis, and Nick’s friend Aimee who you briefly remember from your English class, and other people you could care less about. They all bought him drinks, thinking it would be funny to see the kid get drunk. It turned out that by the time his words started stringing themselves together and merriness sparked in blue happy eyes, most were asleep or too far gone to notice. The ones still awake were handing out shots and kisses in corners smeared with shadow.

They had forgotten about you, but you had him all to yourself, so you didn't mind.

The two of you talked that night, words rolling over each other, tumbling and aching and reminiscing through the limited histories you can lay claim to. He told you about Demi, a girl he had a crush on, with blonde hair and an annoying laugh, who collected scars on her wrists like seashells from the beach, and of Josh, the first boy he kissed when he was fifteen (you remembered him from your P.E class the year previous and felt jealous of him being the first to take that kiss even though you have no right to be). It's the first inkling you ever got that he was interested in anything other than the opposite gender, and the knowledge pleased you somewhat. You smothered the smile it created in another gulp of your glass of – whatever you were drinking.

And in return you indulged him in tales of all the romance you had had in your short eighteen years; the little childish loves when you were young which amounted to holding hands and kissing at the back row of the cinema, to the more serious relationships in high school; Perrie, who had an obsession with eye make-up and what you believed was an inner black girl persona, Danny, who you dated for three weeks before you found him making out with some hipster fag up against his car, and Liam, who you thought was the one for a year and a half until he broke it off, saying it wasn't working.

He listened somberly as you recounted these stories, staring into the distance but really at him, before softly, he touched your hand in a sympathetic gesture (your heart skipped like cannon fire, but you said nothing, made no move) and declared that more drinks were needed.

When he laughed loud and inebriated later on in the night when you told him a bad joke, one of the many you had memorized ( _Why did the mushroom go to the party...)_ , you caught sight of slight dimples on either cheek.

You can believe in true love too when he does that.

He is smiling to himself now, his gaze glancing away from you, and you ask yourself why you don't make your affections known to him. You've thought about it long enough, the words stuck at the back of your throat, waiting for a prime moment that never comes, is never the right time.

You think over it for a moment before you realize there is no reason at all. But that's what you do, keep secrets, pretend he's just your friend when you want so much more, a habit formed with the sediment of years, and you may call yourself a coward, but it's self-preservation, it makes more sense to wait than to open up yourself to the danger of loving too much and too hard.

You think,  _I'm in love and I'm still waiting, and waiting is overrated, so why not take the chance, take what feels mine, what he's offering me with his eyes._ Hide away the ghosts of your doubt, your fears and lock them away in a room with no key.

You don't – won't or can't but it doesn't matter which – and swallow words like glass back down, wish you could be braver, bolder, stronger to bear the weight of words that you keep unsaid.

You write him a letter instead. Many, in fact; and keep them locked away in a small box.

One day, you tell yourself, you’ll be able to say the words aloud that you scribble on pieces of paper, and you glance over at him and smile back.

* * *

_Dear Niall,_

_This is my first letter to you, the first of many I’m assuming, as I need to get my feelings out; can’t bottle them up any longer._

_I recently feel as if I've just woken up from a long sleep, and have finally opened my eyes._

_Things seem so clear… and it makes me wonder how I didn't notice. How could I have not seen?_

_It's like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time.. But really, words cannot describe and my limited vocabulary doesn't begin to cover it, and that this pen cannot begin to portray what emotions flood my senses._

_I have suddenly realized, I've cared longer then I dare to admit, more than the 13 months we’d been living together._

_A mere crush it started; you, Niall, shy as a butterfly, naïve as can be, with a seemingly innocent aura that only a child can possess.. You, all those years ago, sparked my interest._

_Though waking up to you in your disheveled state every morning, having lost that childish innocence, no longer naïve, that crush turned into a fire, one can only hope will burn for all eternity._

_I, as it turns out, did what I was starting to think was impossible, and have fallen in love._

_So this is the first letter of many that I will write but keep safely stored away, safe from your eyes. The first of many that will be addressed, but never given, to you._

_\- Zayn_

 

Pacing around his bedroom with his bottom lip captured between his teeth, biting it nervously, Niall scrounged around in his pocket. There was a note there; slightly creased due to the constant contact with the piece of paper. But it was there, and Niall felt the need to run his fingers past the folded sheet at least twice every so often.

' _What if_ ,' Niall thought, rubbing the note in his pocket with his thumb. ' _What if he hates me for reading it?'_

He had considered the possibility several times after finding the note, which had been sitting on your desk, clearly left there on accident. Clearly not for him to see. He had pondered all day, staring at the note and re-reading every word in each sentence with infinite concentration, so that every time he read it, it became even more abstract to his mind.

In those moments of dragging his feet along the same strip of carpet, Niall realized something though. He realized he loved you.

* * *

There is a handsome man kissing your lips and the words he says are telling you he loves you.

You never thought it would come to this, every algorithm of how you would eventually tell him not ending at this conclusion, every imagining of admitting your half longing, half shameful secrets that until now have lain protected, nestled in the safety of a wooden box, sealed with a padlock from the outside world to be revealed to no one but maybe lead you to utter the words someday, not being at all like this. You thought about how this might have panned out, but you never captured the tiny miracles of this moment; how the lips on yours have softened, follow every kiss with another smaller touch, like a test, like he's checking, like he's signing the burning brand of his lips with another soothing touch to mark it completely as his own.

He asks whether this is alright, whether you want this, and you say  _Yes,_ in a breathless heady voice, and repeat it, a mantra, a blessing, a promise as his silhouette shifts and his lips crack into a perfect smile.

His hands touch against your hips, the fabric of your trouser legs feeling increasingly immaterial as the seconds elongate and prolong every sensation, rising in a crescendo and his lips kiss deeper, would bruise if they weren't so gentle, and this should feel intrusive, should feel too fast, you should talk about this and whether it's right. But you can't muster any complaints when Niall’s doing that with his hands, and efficiently ridding you of most of your clothes. Peeling away any defense, laying you bare for his appraising eyes. He makes you feel beautiful, and it's addictive.

Think about this, you tell yourself, coherent thoughts draining away like sand in an hourglass, washed away by indifference to stopping and desperation in wanting to continue.

Think about this and how it could ruin you, think about how it could tear out your heart when he decides he wants someone new, someone better, someone not you, think about the mistakes you've made when you thought you were right and you were so, so wrong, think about how he smiles like he's so strong but you could break him with just one denial.

Think about how feelings are fragile and prone to lying, but you can't regret it, can't think about the future and how one day this glorious mistake in falling in love could cut your hands with glass bitter words, or one action could rip him away from you forever and leave you only with silence. So you think about him, about this, how he's been telling you he loved you for a long, long time and you just never realized, think about now, how he hums at the back of his throat when you run your fingers up the delineated lines of his ribs, how it is natural, is right, is like you have awoken from years asleep, a forever without the electricity sparking your bones.

This is what it comes back to, what it always has returned to, you and him, and the stars outside, and the tangled knot of skin your bodies create, and the way he touches his lips with yours and the admission you search out there with your own.

 

He loves you, tells you with a whisper of words that shine in a purple dark, and you reach out with a yearning heart and dare to believe him.


End file.
